Shades of Grey

[qafan]

Title: Shades of Grey Chapter Six
Author: qafan
Beta: positive_pat Thanks, Pat, for taking the time and effort to work on this story. It is an enormous undertaking, but I'm so glad you were the one with the guts to do it! You and Dops both know Brian better than anyone on here I've seen, so thank you so much for taking on my story!
I'd also like to thank doppelgangerqaf for all her input and guidance in this story. She encouraged me and kept me excited to write this, and I wouldn't have even had the courage to seek Pat out to have it betaed were it not for her. Thanks Dops!
As for the AMAZING banner, that's all courtesy of the AMAZING foreverbm. Thank you SO much, again, for the banner! I couldn't have asked for a more perfect banner for this story. Thanks again!!
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Time line: season one
Rating: PG-13 for now, but it'll heat up.
Synopsis: This story, for now, is simply going to be the events of Season One from Brian's perspective. It has a lot of flashbacks to Brian's past, and some scenes that fill in the gaps between scenes and episodes. Everything is written through Brian's eyes, and he tells the story. I hope you enjoy it, it's been a LONG time coming, and if it is a success, it'll be coming a lot more as well. Gimme plenty of feedback!

Author's Note: Chapter SIX..yea!! Ok, so sorry it took so long to get this done. I've been running like mad the past few weeks with the end of the semester, and Pat has been doing the same with the Holidays, so both of us have been working pretty hard. So happy with how this one turned out though. I've combined two episodes in this, and I'm thinking I'm going to start doing that from now on. It will make the story flow more quickly, and I'll be able to concentrate on the important parts and not be bogged down with the little things. I hope you guys enjoy this one. Let me know!  Don't forget to leave me some love! (Tough or otherwise. I'm not picky. *evil grin* )

After that night, things went relatively back to normal for all intents and purposes. I didn't see him around Woody's at all or anywhere else. I was kidding myself if I thought I was completely satisfied with that. Whenever I caught a scent of vanilla, my eyes would dart around expecting to see him. Any blond patch of hair immediately caught my attention. I kept telling myself it was for the best. He had his life to lead, and I had mine.

I returned to my life of drugs, alcohol, and sex, with a little work thrown in there as well. I hadn't been to visit my son since the day after he was born; which was the last time I had seen Justin as well. There were so many things that tied to Gus. If I thought about him, I would have to start thinking about being a father. That's not something I relished the thought of. Also, thinking of Gus always led to thinking of Justin, and I certainly couldn't have that. Thoughts of him were dangerous, and could lead to my doing something stupid...again.

So, that's the reason I gave for avoiding my son. This course of action proved to be incredibly stupid, as it turned out when it came to one little party the munchers decided to throw. They sent out invitations and everything. I didn't really pay much attention to it, because I had no intention of going anyway. I think Michael said it had something to do with Melanie's family, because part of it was in Hebrew. Whatever. They were always having some party or another. I always figured it was more an excuse to get gifts.

Michael hounded me about going to the party all the way up to an hour before it started, even going so far as to follow me into the steam room fully clothed. It took him a while until he got the picture (the picture being my bare backside when I threw my towel in his face), that I wasn't going.

He gave up and left, and I thought that it was settled. That is, until I got a call from him about an hour later.

"How's the party?" I asked sardonically.

I didn't register much of what Michael said, until I heard the word "circumcision." Once I heard that word, I flew into hyper-drive. I cursed and hung up on Michael, threw my things in my bag and ran out the door. I made it to Mel and Linds' house in record time. As I walked into the door, I heard an older man talking. Definitely a rabbi. Priests and rabbi's must have to take a class on how to have the most monotonous voice possible to become a religious leader. This guy had definitely perfected it.

I slipped into the living room where everyone was gathered and politely said, "Excuse me, Rabbi," and then turned to glare at Mel and Linds, "You two. Kitchen. NOW."

We all three stormed off into the kitchen, where Mel immediately began her tirade.

"What the heck do you think you're doing,” she yelled, "barging in and interrupting a religious ceremony!"

I looked at both of them, not willing to back down on this.

"You should have asked my permission first."

"For what?"

"To circumcise my son!"

"We don't have to ask your permission, we're the parents!"

"And I'm the biological father, and that gives me more rights than you." I stated.

This obviously didn't make Melanie happy as she yelled something about studying up on law. We then moved into another of our signature arguments, while Lindsay proceeded to intervene.

"Can we please stop this!" she said, then turned to look at me, "Why does it matter to you if Gus is circumcised?”

"It matters because he's been in this world for less than a week, and already there are people that won't accept him for the way he is," I said all this with a cold calm and determination, "Who would mutilate him rather than let him be the way he is. The way he was born," I stared at both of them to determine their reactions, "Well, I'm not going to let that happen."

I crossed my arms, indicating that it was settled.

I don't think either of them fully understood why I was so resolved. Yes, it was about letting him be who he is, but it's so much more than that, as well. He should be allowed to make that choice himself, not have someone else force the decision on him, because he's not good enough the way he is. He should never doubt whether or not his parents love him for who he is.

When I tried explaining some of this to the guys, Michael seemed impressed, and voiced his sentiments.

"Wow, if you're not careful, you might turn out to be an alright Dad in spite of yourself."

As had seemed to become the way of things, upon being reunited with my son, so to speak, with him came another pleasant surprise. The boys and I decided to stop by Woody's that night for a drink and some pool before heading to Babylon. As usual, they were sitting on the sidelines as I went on the hunt for my evening entertainment. I had a target in mind and was giving him the eye when Michael came up to me griping about Justin having shown up and talking to Deb. When I realized who he was talking about, my eyes instantly went to search him out, as if they were starving to feast on him again. There he was, adorable as ever. It looked like he had been shopping for a clubbing shirt. That's probably a good thing, because the plaid from the other night certainly wouldn't do if he actually wanted to get noticed. Though he hadn't really seemed to have to worry about that yet. He smiled at something Debbie had said, and that now familiar heart constriction came back.

"Leave him alone, he's alright."

I knew that wouldn't go over well with Michael, but I didn't care. Honestly, I'd missed seeing him around. I'd been a jerk to him the last time we'd spoken, and I couldn't bring myself to be cruel to him again. Better to just let him be and ignore him.

"Excuse me, the noise in here is so loud I thought I heard you say he's alright."

"In fact, he's kind of sweet."

My annoyance with Michael escalated when I looked up to see that my previous target had disappeared, and I stormed off to find him. When I couldn't find him outside, I decided to go to Babylon and hunt for him there. It took some doing, because the guy always seemed to elude me, but I finally caught up with him. The thrill of the hunt is always the best part. That's when he turned up again.

He was dancing with a group of guys next to my own little party I'd started, and apparently he'd lost his shirt at some point. The glitter was raining, and it caused his already beautiful skin to appear iridescent, as if he really were a fucking fairy. I guess I wasn't paying much attention to the men I was dancing with, because they both took notice of him and decided to join him. I can't describe to you the jealousy that welled up inside me at that point. Not because they wanted him and not me, but that I wanted him all to myself. I couldn't help feeling as if he were mine, and they didn't have any right to touch him. My hands, however, were screaming to touch him.

Finally, I shoved the other two aside and pressed up against him. I was impressed at how well he danced. For a twink, he certainly knew what he was doing. As cliche' as it sounds, at that point, the other dancers seemed to slip away, and all I could concentrate on was him.

My brain was screaming that I was breaking the rules, that this wasn't supposed to happen, but I just didn't care. He was all I had been thinking about for nearly a week. Obviously pretending he was just another twink wasn't working. I might as well give into it and enjoy it, right? Who cares what anyone else thinks.

Theodore Schmidt. He was the biggest schmuck I'd ever met. He spent long, grueling hours working at a thankless job that he didn't enjoy, working for a prick. He spent most of his life as an observer, continuously degrading himself, sure that he had nothing to offer anyone other than advise on their tax returns. He lead a completely mediocre life, nothing ever spiking his life's radar, leaving it a long, monotonous straight line. That is, until that Friday night. The night I finally reunited with the twink was the same night Schmidt royally screwed himself, and me in the process.

Why he thought he was getting lucky with some tweaked out twink is beyond me, but he apparently thought he'd struck gold, and over did it trying to impress the kid, which left him in a coma and the doctors not giving any sort of hope for his recovery. I won't be so heartless as to say I wasn't sorry for the guy. He was a good guy, however dull he might have been. In my opinion, though, it was his own stupidity that did him in. I said as much to the guys at the hospital.

“We know better. We know not to believe pretty little blond boys who tell you that it's really good. Because that's what they all say. Ted didn't know that. And he didn't know that you only do drugs with your friends, because they're the only ones who give a flip about you.”

Ted didn't know. He hadn't had a lot of real experience, and drugs were new to him. So I felt sorry for him, and I truly did hope he got better. As much as I would have hated to admit it, he had, at some point, become part of the group, the family, without my even noticing it. I would actually care if he lived or died.

I've always had difficulty dealing with emotional situations, especially at hospitals, so I made some excuse and left for the office shortly after my speech. I spent the entire day trying not to think about the fact that a friend, yes, friend, was fighting for his life, and tried with great difficulty to concentrate on work. Unfortunately, that was to be further interrupted by my least favorite muncher lawyer, Melanie.

Melanie was, for all intents and purposes, a thorn in my side most days. She hated me for my major role in Lindsey's life. That hatred was only further exacerbated by the fact that I didn't stand for any bull. I said what I thought, did what I felt, and didn't give a flying fuck what others thought about my actions, or the consequences. I think, deep down, a part of Melanie respected that about me, but she also saw how the things I did so often hurt the ones she loved.

Things were a lot better than when she and Lindsey first started dating. We instantly took a disliking to each other for our own reasons. Mine were that I felt I was losing Lindsey. She'd never really dated seriously before Mel, so I had always been number one in her life. Sure, we weren't dating, or even really physically attracted to each other. We had a connection, though, that couldn't be found elsewhere. I was always the Peter Pan to her Wendy. Neither of us had ever had any designs to follow convention and grow up, get married and have a house full of children running around. We said we would do what we wanted with our lives, screw convention. That is, until Melanie came along.

There was this instant connection between them. All at once, it was Mel did this, Mel said that. It wasn't long before she was moving her stuff into Mel's apartment. I would call her up to see about going to a party together, but she wouldn't answer, or she would say that she and Mel were going to see a movie or something. It was all very lesbian, and it sickened me.

Then something happened. I finally got her to go out with me again. We had both finished exams and were free for the summer break. Mel, on the other hand, was in the process of preparing for her LSAT exam, and was shut up in her apartment studying like a ravenous dog. So, Lindsey broke away to give her some privacy and herself a chance to get away from the pressure they were both under.

“So,” I said as we walked toward the frat house, “how's things in muncher-ville?”

Lindsey rolled her eyes at my snide remark and replied, “Things are fine,” she paused, “she's just really stressed right now with the pressure to get into a good Law school.”

I raised my brow at this comment and curled my lips in a sinister grin.

“Trouble in paradise, is it?”

“No,” she said adamantly, “we just don't have as much time to spend together as usual.”

“Don't worry, Wendy, you know you've always got me to turn to,” I said light-heartedly as I threw my arm around her shoulder, “Now, lets go have some fun,” I continued while pulling out some of my own little concoction of party in a bag.

She smiled and took the drug and sniffed some of it. I could tell it was just what she was looking for. I smiled and did the same as we walked up to the steps of the frat house. I anticipated an evening reminiscent of “old times” with my best friend.

That night was the real reason Melanie hated me so much. Because that night was the night Lindsey cheated on her...with me. Apparently, she and Melanie had been doing more than just bickering due to stress, they had been fighting a lot. And apparently it was about me. Though we didn't party like we used to, we still hung out, and apparently Melanie didn't like it. That night they had a pretty big blow-out. Melanie insisted that I was the source of their problems, and Lindsey insisted that she was being irrational and overly sensitive. With nothing resolved, Lindsey had left and come to me. And there we were, at a party getting drunk and high like we used to.

Somehow, we ended up back in my dorm room. I was lucky enough not to have a roommate. We sat on my floor smoking a joint and laughing about memories from high school. The conversation somehow got around to the first time we “experimented.” We had been drunk and high then as well. And very lonely. Just like that night.

Next thing I knew, we were both clawing at each other's clothes and kissing. I really don't remember much about the actual sex, mainly because I was so wasted. I woke up the next morning with a hangover that threatened to split my head in two. When Lindsey awoke and realized what had happened, she freaked out, threw on her clothes, and rushed out the door. Later that day, I got a rather obnoxious pounding on my door, and was pretty pissed to have to get up and answer it to see Melanie standing there looking like she was seconds from exploding on me. Before I could even say anything, she landed a punch square on my nose, knocking my back into the room.

“HOW DARE YOU SLEEP WITH MY GIRLFRIEND!” she yelled as she shoved me back against the wall.

I cursed as my nose began to bleed. She was one strong muncher, I had to hand her that.

“It was just a screw, and besides we were wasted out of our minds!”

This was obviously the wrong thing to say to her and had I not put my hands up to fend off her next attack, I would have had a black eye to go with my nose.

“Listen, you prick, and get something clear right now. Lindsey is not your little call girl anymore. She's not someone you can just use and abuse when the fancy strikes you. She's my girlfriend now. We're together, I love her, and I'm not going to allow you to interfere in our relationship at every turn you can. I don't know how we're going to get through this patch that you seem so adapt at screwing us up in, but we will get through it, and when we do, so help me, if you try to come between us like that again, I will personally rip your balls off and shove them down your throat, and enjoy every second of doing it! Do we understand each other?”

My face had blanched white at this point and all I could do was nod. I'd never seen Melanie so furious and I knew that she had made no idle threat. I saw the hatred mixed with pain and betrayal in her eyes, and a part of me truly felt sorry for her. She really did love Lindsey, and I knew that by doing what I had, I had seriously jeopardized Lindsey's chance at real happiness. Melanie could have told Lindsey to screw herself and shoved her out the door and out of her life, but she hadn't. She had come straight to me and confronted me about stepping away.

Which, to an extent, is what I did. I didn't actively intervene in their relationship again after that, no matter how repulsive I personally felt about it. That didn't stop Lindsey from coming to me with her problems, though, and it didn't keep us from being close. There were still issues between Mel and I, and I'm sure my ongoing closeness to Lindsey was still a sore spot between them, but at the very least, they were still together, and for the most part, pretty happy. Whatever my own personal opinions about the whole situation was moot, so I just went along with the ride, so to speak.

Seeing her standing in my office, however, was not a surprise I particularly took pleasure in. The day had already been difficult enough without having to deal with her sinister attitude.

“Excuse me for barging in,” she said as she burst into my office with her briefcase and dropped it onto the expensive glass desktop. “This won't take long. As you may or may not know, I'm Ted's lawyer.”

“So?” I said in annoyance at the intrusion.

“So you need to know Ted made a living will. Do you have one?” she asked.

“No.”

“Well, you should, but I'm not your lawyer, I'm his,” she stated simply as she laid a stack papers in front of me, “Anyway, he's made you responsible.”

“For what?” I asked, my annoyance at this interview growing by the second.

“For deciding should he ever be incompetent or unable to make a decision whether to be kept alive by extraordinary measures, or,” she paused, “be permitted to die.”

Was I seriously hearing this right? I barely even spoke to the guy! Why would he have chosen me of all people? I pulled my thoughts together and kept the mask of cool calm on my face.

“Are you telling me that Ted wants me to decide whether or not to pull the plug?”

She raised an eyebrow and shook her head, “I tried to talk him out of it.”

“And how long have you known about this?” I asked, feeling a headache beginning to develop.

“It doesn't matter how long,” she responded.

“Yea, it does,” I retorted, “I'm the secret you two have been sharing. When were you planning on telling me?”

She scoffed, “I was hoping I wouldn't have to, that the situation would never arise.”

I was becoming angry. How could they make this decision without even consulting me first?

“Well it has, it's arisen now.”

“And now you know,” she counters.

I couldn't believe this. How could he? Why would he? We're not even that close! Why not his mother, or at least Michael or Emmett for god's sake!

“...Because I can't decide what to wear in the morning,” was Emmett's response to this, “Who in their right mind would give me power over life and death.”

“Maybe he's secretly in love with you,” Michael suggested.

Oh yea, that's a great way of expressing oneself.

“I love you, I'm comatose, kill me.”

I spent the entire day freaking out, and trying to figure out why the man chose me. Above all else, what was I supposed to do? I couldn't be responsible for another life. I could barely be responsible for my own! After spending the afternoon obsessing over it, I found myself at Mel and Linds' house. Lindsey opened the door with Gus in her arms. It's amazing to think that no matter what I was dealing with, seeing my son always seemed to bring a sense of calm over me. When Lindsey put him in my arms, the stress seemed to melt away for a moment.

Then Mel came down griping about bath time or something, and I just couldn't take it.

“I don't give a crap what Ted wants. I'm not doing it, do you understand?”

“I told him you'd be this way,” she said with a laugh.

“He has a mother.”

“Yea, would you wish this on your mother?”

I stared at her for a moment. Would I? Honestly, I wonder most days if mine would even care enough to bother, but that's not something I'd consider telling Melanie.

“He has better friends.”

“Well that's for sure.”

Linds, as always, tried to intervene, and, as usual, Mel and I launched into another of our award winning blowups. In the end, though, she got me. She nailed me to the wall and crucified me.

“I said Brian is not the person you want responsible for your life. He's a selfish, narcissistic little faggot, and let me tell you something, it's not because you suck cock, it's because your a little coward! So go! get out! now!” she yelled as she jabbed her finger toward the door.

There wasn't much I could say to that, and a part of me knew it was true. I was selfish, and I was a coward. I didn't want to have to decide whether Ted lived or died. I looked between her and Lindsey, as my little boy laid in his mother's arms, crying, probably scared about all the yelling he was hearing. I left quietly then. I would have never let Mel know how much I respected her in that moment for calling me on my bull, but I did. It stung to have her so completely pin me to the wall, but I think I needed to hear it.

I was being selfish, and cowardly. It wasn't about me, really, it was about Ted. I wasn't ready to come to terms with any of it though, so I did the only thing I knew to do when I wanted to run away from something. I went in search of someone to screw to take my mind off of it. I found myself at some sleazy place, where a few tolerably attractive tricks began to supplicate me. I tried to get lost in the feeling, but something in me was screaming how wrong it was. That this wasn't going to make things go away. I shoved them off and left.

After talking to Lindsey later that day about what being alive really means, I decided I needed to start thinking about Ted and not just about myself. I found myself at the hospital in Ted's room, staring at his sleeping form.

“Screw you.” I said, “Screw you, for going home with some twinked out twinkie and thinking you got lucky,” I said quietly, “Did he let you suck his cock?” I whispered, still angry at him for choosing me, “I hope it was worth it. And screw you for choosing me. I ought to let you lie here forever. How'd you like that?” I paused and asked, “Can you hear me?”

How I wished he could. Why couldn't he just wake up? Why couldn't he make this easier on me?

“You know, you're not so bad looking. In fact, you're better like this. You should die more often. Or live. So that I don't have to say yes. Yes I'll do it. I'll give you what you want, what you need. But don't think it's for you. It's not. It's for me.”

For me. Yes, that's how I tried to see it. If I made it about me, and not about him, about his life, it would be so much easier. Instead of having to choose life or death for someone else, I would simply be being selfish again, just like Mel always says.

As it turned out, Ted made the decision for me when he woke up. And I was kind enough to give him a show to wake up to while I screwed one of the night nurses on duty in the bed next to him. I'm sure he got off on that.

Later, after he was released from the hospital and we were back at his apartment helping him settle in, I asked him why he chose me, and was somewhat surprised by the answer.

“My mother couldn't do it, Michael and Emmett couldn't do it. But you could. Cause you're a heartless jerk, you could pull the plug and you wouldn't cry,” he said, and then added, “And you'd know when it was time to go.”